Project Overview
Run in 2014, 23 young unemployed graphic designers work under the guidance of four cutting-edge Sydney graphic designers to re-brand businesses in the Western Sydney suburb of Granville in a unique skills development, mentoring and employment program known as Branded!
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Information Cultural Exchange & Boccalatte
Team
TEAM: Tavao Fa’Avae-Eli, Tonia Mo, Rafael Lerion, Lina Chung, Stephen Tran & Olivia Mead
MENTOR: Boccalatte
Project Brief
Branded! focused on the Western Sydney suburb of Granville, in particular the Good Street retail/residential precinct. Branded set about the reinvigoration of Good Street by immersing young graphic designers in the retail and cultural realities of a working street by brokering strong relationships with and between the designers, Good Street retailers and the project’s professional design and skills development mentors.
Throughout 2014 ICE presented Branded! a skills development and creative mentor program for young unemployed graphic designers from Western Sydney. The project acted as a catalyst for work placement and potential employment in the design creative industry (as well as creating pathways to further education).
Branded! offered a ‘real time/real life/real client’ opportunity for unemployed graphic designers to work with retailers and business to create something special and unique for Good Street i.e. design work that is innovative, affordable and functional.
Participants were matched to, trained and mentored by some of Australia’s leading contemporary graphic designers and companies including Boccalatte, Garnett, Kindred and W$YK. Importantly, Branded! was a hands on, experientially based project that would lead to outcomes for participant designers and retailers alike.
Project Innovation/Need
The project was unique in approach working with three key groups.
1. Young unemployed designers
2. Innovative design firms currently at the top of the industry
3. Family owned and run small retail business
It’s offer was a rich experiential learning experience for the mentors as well as a new generation of young designers having the opportunity to influence each others work through a practical project working with community-based family run businesses. It not only pushed the young designers and trained them but also offered existing design firms to work with the new breed of young designers.
Design Challenge
The main challenge for the project was the understanding that the designs were conceptual with the potential for them to be created from both the young designers and the retailer’s perspective. Through the specific mentoring program all other challenges like working between designers, retailers and young people, material, equipment and concepts were negotiated and resolved prior to the completion of the work.
Effectiveness
The project created 15 internships across a variety of programs.
19 new designs created for four different businesses. ABC TV ran a story on The Mix that highlighted participant Shaun Gonzalez and mentors We Buy Your Kids.
Participant Ernest Salib has secured work following Branded at a design firm based in Marrickville and Andrew Fairclough (Kindred) has added participants Fahran Mahmud and Kevin Tang to his freelance illustration database.
Currently ICE is in negotiation to make some of the designs a reality and for them to be used in Good Street. The designer that is picked will be paid for their designs.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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